


Conditional Love

by The_Dancing_Walrus



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Family break up, Forgiveness, Gen, Hate Crimes, Prison, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 01:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2833778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Dancing_Walrus/pseuds/The_Dancing_Walrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baatar Jr didn't think he'd ever have to ask for his family's forgiveness, but then he didn't really think he'd done anything to ask forgiveness for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conditional Love

His Mother had said they’d forgive him and he’d believed her.

 

He’d pictured, through the haze of injury and heartbreak and hospital painkillers everything returning to normal somehow. Going home. Seeing his parents and brothers and sister again. Working on the railways again. And perhaps eventually meeting someone-

 

First there is a hospital room with no windows and a single door that locks from the other side.

 

Then there is a cell, blank with the furniture bolted down. His guards are benders and one of them, a girl with fine fire-nation features smiles as she twists her metal lines so they look almost alive.

 

There’s a court room, specially prepared and featureless where he is charged with high treason, murder, ethnic cleansing and three counts of attempted genocide. He sits and listens while Varrick, his aunt, Bolin, his _little sister_ all give evidence against him and-

 

And what could he say in his defence? That he loved Kuvira? That he would have done anything for her, anything she asked? They know that already before they brought in the refugees, the people from the re-education camps, old school friends from Zaofu who wouldn’t bow.

 

It ends in another cell. A more permanent one.

 

Apparently it’s not too far from Zaheer’s.

 

He doesn’t know where Kuvira’s is, they wouldn’t tell him and so he doesn’t ask.

 

Most of his family came to visit him, quite regularly even his aunt and for a long time that made him think that they had forgiven him. That perhaps if he ever got out he might have a place among them again.

 

And then Opal finally comes to see him.

 

She wears an airbender’s uniform, wings folded across her chest and a deep, dark frown.

 

She’s shaved her head.

 

She tells him she only came because of Mum. He tries to ask her how she’s been, what she’s been doing and she tells him-

 

She tells him about the number of people still homeless after the battle for Republic City. She tells him about emptying Kuvira’s prisons and ‘re-education camps’ and taking the people home. She tells him how the design of the railways makes it easier to bring aid to people in the areas that supported Kuvira than those that didn’t. She tells him about the firebenders and waterbenders she brought home to find their houses occupied and their possessions stolen.

 

And at first he doesn’t understand because she forgave Bolin-

 

“Bolin didn’t know what he was doing.” She replies. “But you- you did. Every step of the way you knew.”

 

And he wanted to say that he didn’t realise, that he didn’t mean to but-

 

His sister, his sweet, compassionate little sister, looks at him as though he’s the lowest most disgusting thing to ever crawl out of the earth.

 

And leaves.

 

And after a while he starts to see it in the rest of them as well. They forgive him but not entirely.

 

Aunt Lin can forgive him for the Earth Empire but not the damage to Republic City.

 

Huan can’t forget the loss of his work.

 

Wei and Wing could each forgive their own capture, imprisonment and beatings. But they can’t get past the sight of their mother or brother in a cage.

 

His father can’t forgive the invasion of Zaofu or seeing the huge metal cases, like lotus petals, torn asunder.

 

His mother can’t quite forgive him for loving Kuvira or leaving with her in the first place. As though she could have some how stopped him from getting into this….mess, by stopping him from leaving Zaofu-

 

And Opal-

 

Opal hasn’t forgiven him anything, as though he’s an extension of Kuvira, as though she’s somehow related to a dictator’s arm, or toe.

 

Which isn’t true. He was always more than an extension of Kuvira, more than a soldier just following orders. He didn’t just help her build her vision, it had been his vision as well: their future, their perfect Empire. Modern and progressive, her tactics and his technology sweeping away the imperfections and the mess-

 

It was remarkable how often that mess happened to be people.

 

If his mother could persuade Opal to come back one day he might be able to tell her that- Although it might make her hate him more. He’s not sure he could quite say it to the others.

 

Alone in his cell he thinks about it again and again.

 

He hasn’t entirely forgiven himself yet either.

 

And that may be fair, because he’s still not sure, even now, even here, that he’s accepted everything he’s done.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The theme of unconditional love in families bothers me. A lot of stories seem to suggest that families should strive to forgive each other of everything and anything short of outright abuse (and even then we're often encouraged to). That encouragement often comes regardless of whether the people involved have shown in any way that they know what they did was wrong. 
> 
> The handling of the Bei Fong family bothered me a lot in Korra on those grounds. Lin and Suyin's reconciliation, Toph and Lin- for me it rang false. But not nearly as much as Baatar. I hope the fic shows why.


End file.
